Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston (4 October 1923-5 April 2008), born Charlton John Carter, was an American actor and political activist. Heston was originally a liberal Democratic Party member, supporting the Civil Rights movement, but he joined the Republican Party in 1987 and served as President of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003.

Biography
Charlton John Carter was born in Wilmette, Illinois, United States on 4 October 1923, and he lived in St. Helen, Michigan for a few years before returning to Wilmette at the age of 10. He joined the US Air Force in 1944 and was stationed in Alaska during World War II, and he became a Broadway actor after the war. In 1956, he played Moses in The Ten Commandments, his breakthrough role. Heston proceeded to appear in Ben-Hur in 1959, and he played El Cid in the 1961 film El Cid and Michelangelo in the 1965 film The Agony and the Ecstasy. In 1968, he played the main role in The Planet of the Apes, one of the most famous American movies.

During the 1970s, Heston began to play supporting roles or appear in cameos, and he became more known for his political activism. He took part in the March on Washington, supported the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, served as President of the Screen Actors Guild from 1965 to 1971, supported gun control, and opposed the Vietnam War, and he turned down a request by the Democratic Party to run for the US Senate against Republican Party incumbent George Murphy in 1969. In 1972, rather than vote for the progressive candidate George McGovern, he decided to vote for Republican Party candidate Richard Nixon, shifting towards neoconservatism. During the 1980s, he supported Ronald Reagan's presidency, and he switched his registration to Republican in 1987. Heston served as President of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003, and he campaigned for George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush during the 1990s and 2000s. On 20 May 2000, he famously told the government, "I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands," referring to the Second Amendment. In 2002, he became to suffer from Alzheimer's, and he resigned as NRA president a year later. He died in Beverly Hills, California on 5 April 2008 at the age of 84.